A BOOKKEEPER had a "turbulent" relationship with the man accused of her murder, her mother told a court today.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard that Suzanne Pilley thought she would find a lasting relationship with David Gilroy but he had started to tell lies and act strangely.

Jurors also heard that Gilroy became jealous when Ms Pilley met an old school friend a couple of months before she was allegedly murdered.

Sylvia Pilley, 69, was giving evidence on the second day of Gilroy's trial.

Gilroy, 49, of Edinburgh, denies murdering 38-year-old Miss Pilley on May 4 2010 in Edinburgh, or elsewhere, and hiding her body before driving away with it in the boot of a car.

Jurors heard yesterday that Gilroy, who had left his wife, moved into Miss Pilley's Edinburgh flat in Whitson Road in May-June 2009.

Advocate depute Alex Prentice QC asked the witness if she talked with her daughter about her relationship with Gilroy.

Agreeing, Mrs Pilley said: "She was a bit confused about his attitude. She wanted to find someone to share her life. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life on her own.

"She thought she would find a permanent relationship with him but he began to tell too many lies and change arrangements they had made and never showed up.

"He really acted quite strange. He lived in the house but he said he wouldn't go into the house unless she was there, which I found quite strange when he lived there."

Former shop assistant Mrs Pilley, who appeared slightly tearful at points during her evidence, went on to describe how her daughter told her that Gilroy became jealous when she bumped into an old school friend a couple of months before May 2010.

She said: "It was just an innocent meeting and the chap asked her if she wanted to stop for coffee. She mentioned it to David Gilroy. He became quite jealous. I think she found it quite unreasonable that she wasn't allowed to speak to anyone else."

Mrs Pilley also recounted a time, in summer 2009, when her daughter thought she had lost her mobile phone.

"It was about three weeks before she found out that David Gilroy had hidden the phone. She was very annoyed because it meant she couldn't keep in touch," she told the jury of eight men and seven women.

"It was always a turbulent relationship. It was on and it was off. She was always packing his clothes, sending him away, then apologising and coming back. The relationship went on like that."

Mrs Pilley said she was in regular text and phone contact with Suzanne and knew where she was "every minute of the day".

She recounted a time before Christmas 2009 when her daughter phoned her in tears, saying Gilroy had started throwing things out of the kitchen window.

Mrs Pilley also told of a conversation she had with her daughter later the same day.

"She phoned me at night-time to say the police had turned up at her door. Somebody had threatened a neighbour."

Mrs Pilley told the jury she spoke to her daughter around early May 2010 about internet dating.

"She felt she had wasted too much time with David Gilroy and it wasn't going anywhere so she wanted to meet somebody else," the witness told the court.

Mrs Pilley said her daughter went out with a man named Mark the weekend before she went missing and had texted her to say she had a good time.

She said she last spoke to her daughter on Monday May 3, and she was planning to meet Mark the same day.

The witness said: "She seemed quite happy but at the same time she had been having second thoughts about David Gilroy: should she go back to him or not?"

On the morning of May 4, Mrs Pilley received a text message from her daughter, saying: "I think Mark likes me. Take it slow."

She said that later that day she received a telephone call from Ms Pilley's firm, Infrastructure Management in Edinburgh's Thistle Street, saying she had not turned up for work. By 6.45pm that day she had phoned police to tell them her daughter was missing.

Asked about her friends and family, she said: "I think they thought it was strange that I reported it so quickly but I knew there was something wrong."

Later another witness said Gilroy pointed car keys at him and threatened to stab and kill him.

Painter and decorator Scott Stewards, 26, said the incident happened in November 2009 after he spotted Gilroy in his garden and confronted him.

Mr Stewards, who was living in Whitson Road at the time, said Gilroy initially told him to mind his own business. The witness said he then went indoors to put his trainers on before going back outside to talk to Gilroy again.

Mr Stewardson said Gilroy then "threatened" him, and held car keys close to his eyes, saying: "I'll stab you. Mind your own business."

The witness said he took a step back, and Gilroy added "I'll kill you if you don't stop it", before telling him: "Hear no evil, see no evil."

The accused then made a gesture with his fingers to suggest that he was watching him, the witness said.